


All Night, Alright

by OrsFri



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrsFri/pseuds/OrsFri
Summary: "Ivan hoists him up the kitchen counter with an arm curved around his ass and a palm cupping the back of his head."A night in the life of Gilbert Beilschmidt, formerly normal, presently dying. Halloween Fic 2016





	

**Author's Note:**

> I AM NOT GOING TO LET HALLOWEEN PASS WITHOUT A SINGLE FIC. I AM NOT. So here have this. I am not pleased with how it turns out, but the deadline is looming.

_23 00_

Ivan hoists him up the kitchen counter with an arm curved around his ass and a palm cupping the back of his head.

Gilbert feels the vibration of a dull thud where his skull is cushioned by Ivan's hand, before the very hand slips away and the bottom edge of the cabinet digs uncomfortably into him.

"Fuck," he mutters when Ivan pulls away. Ivan chuckles, and presses another kiss on Gilbert's lips.

"This is all very unhygienic," Ivan says lightly. He trails a finger down the seams of Gilbert's jeans, to where it is bracketing Ivan by the hip. "A _very_ concerning health hazard."

Gilbert groans. "You don't even eat _normal_ food. You can't even die."

"No, but you can." Ivan steps back abruptly, and Gilbert has to let go before he got pulled off the counter and down to the floor. "Also, I'm hungry."

"Will you stop reminding me of my imminent death?"

Ivan licks his lips. "No," he answers firmly, patting Gilbert on the knee. "I heard that an old family finally moved away. Their family graves are left behind." His pupils constrict. "I _am_ very hungry, Gilbert."

Gilbert wishes, for just once in his life, that his life is less literal and more filled with innuendos, and very much more _normal_. "Will there ever be a day when you kiss me and feel turned on instead of hungry?" he grumbles instead.

"Oh, I am turned on. I am also hungry," Ivan says, and Gilbert thinks that if this conversation goes on any longer Ivan will probably accidentally kill him and they will have to resurrect Gilbert as a ghost. Gilbert _really_ does not want to be a ghost. He likes being concrete much better, thank you very much. "I can't help it. You taste so much like death."

"Wow, geez. Very flattering. Definitely boner-inducing material."

Ivan laughs, but it is tinged with this hoarse hysteria that makes Gilbert thinks that they are pushing very, _very_ close to Ivan's limits. "I need to go."

Gilbert nods. "And I'll go extend my deadline."

" _Yes,"_ Ivan hisses. His fingers tremble when he lifts them up. With a quick wave and a smile too wide, Ivan slips out of the house.

Gilbert hears the click of the auto-lock, and leans back, only to yelp again when his head smacks hard on the cabinet.

* * *

_23 10_

The thing about living a few storeys under a witch is that, well, you live only a few storeys under a _witch._

"The door is unlocked," Arthur calls before Gilbert can even knock. 

Arthur is also the only one in the entire building without an auto-lock, which, given that he has some weird plants telepathy, means that he doesn't actually even _need_ a lock when he has _killer vines_ wrapping the door shut.

When the door swings open, the vines lurk menacingly over the door arch.

Gilbert ducks under its tendrils and makes his way over to the center table where Arthur is rolling some luminescent black pills on a tray.

"Open up," Arthur says, and in one swift movement, grabs Gilbert by the jaw, pop a pill in, and slams his chin up. 

The pill uncoils on his tongue and fucking _slithers_ down his throat. Gilbert coughs. "What the hell was that?"

"It won't kill you," Arthur replies, then amends when Gilbert cringes, "it _may_ make you queasy."

"It _moved_."

"Have some faith. Have I tried to kill you yet?" Arthur sighs. "I have not tried to kill you yet. Instead, I kept you alive! Such sportsmanship; I am rather moved by myself."

Gilbert grits his teeth. " _Arthur."_

 _"_ Fine. Get your ghoul boyfriend to bring home a few hearts. Younger the better, preferably buried within the past two weeks, and." Arthur fishes a syringe from somewhere under the piles of paper and reaches for Gilbert's shoulder. "It has to be female." He stabs it into Gilbert's neck.

He yanks the syringe out before Gilbert can even hiss and tosses it at the wall. A leaf unfurls to catch the syringe, before rolling it down to a pitcher plant that swallows it up. Gilbert tries to ignore the subsequent burp. "Any deadlines?"

"Before you die." Arthur finally, _finally_ looks Gilbert in the eye. "The potion doesn't take effect until the deal has been fulfilled."

Gilbert closes his eyes and exhales sharply. "So how long will this one last?"

"Six months, take away a week or two." Gilbert opens his eyes. Arthur's eyes are ridiculously bright and swirling with too solid a green. It's fucking creepy. "I overheard your conversation."

Arthur doesn't overhear. Arthur blatantly eavesdrops on everyone his magic touches. Not that Gilbert is going to complain if it gets him what he wants. "Thanks."

Arthur snickers. "Just don't forget the hearts," he simpers, turning away. "Remember: if I die, you die with me, and no one wants that, do they?" He pauses. "Now help me dig out that cauldron from one of the cupboards. The sparkling one. I want to try out a new prank."

* * *

_03 57_

Gilbert spends the first ten minutes trying to coax Arthur's bat into delivering his message for him (because no, Ivan doesn't like to spend subsequent nights at cemeteries, contrary to what his diet leads people to believe) and the next few hours being free labour for Arthur. It is three minutes from four when someone knocks on the door with two sharp raps. The vines shrivelled away from the door, and it swings open for a two hundred pounds of fur and mud to leap across the room, send the entire of Gilbert's hardwork of arranging the desk _smashing_ onto the floor, and land by toppling Arthur down.

Gilbert swears. "What the hell, Alfred."

The mass of fur quickly melds back together into skin, and there Alfred lies, fucking _naked_ and guffawing at the scandalised expressions he draws. "I hunted a moose!"

"Tell me you rip off its horns," says Arthur. "And its eyes," he adds after some thought.

"It's _all_ in the trunk."

"I ate all its intestines though," Matthew says morosely from the door. He takes in the room and winces. "Alfred, get up. This looks incestuous."

Alfred rolls off and proceeds to wag his ass, because he is pretty much an oversized _dog._ He wriggles his eyebrows, and when that earns him a collective groan, ambles to the chest at the corner to dig for clothes. "Shush, Mattie, you know I have Daddy Issues."

Arthur groans. "I am not your dad. At most, we are cousins. Or uncle and nephews. I don't know. Too much inbreeding going on in the family."

"That is not making it any better," says Gilbert.

"Alfred does _not_ have Daddy Issues," Matthew argues. Then he hesitates. He hugs his arms around his body when he is concerned, although Gilbert wishes he doesn't do that, because then the cloth caves at his waist and makes him look like an emancipated scarecrow. "Wolves don't develop Daddy Issues, right?"

"He has the opposite of Daddy Issues," Gilbert says.

Matthew scrunches his eyebrows. "Mommy Issues?"

"No, just good ol' attention whoring." Arthur finally sits up. His back creaks when he bends. "I can hear your brother getting out the air freshener."

"Yeah," Alfred chirps, fumbling a little with his jeans, "stop having sex in the living room, dude, we smell _everything."_

"I- We-" Gilbert throws his hands up in the air. "We didn't actually do anything because he was hungry."

"Ew, dude."

"It's not like he _wants_ to eat me. Literally, I mean. He prefers the rotting type of flesh."

Matthew nods understandingly. "I do want to eat you literally, though. I prefer fresh corpses."

_"Ew, dude."_

"Alfred, shut up." A vine swings down and whips at Alfred. Alfred _shrieks._ Arthur kneads at the crease between his eyebrows. "It's almost dawn, so Ivan should be back soon. You should go back and do... whatever you need to do." He grimaces. "And apologise to Ludwig."

There is a collective wince, and Matthew pulls Gilbert out of the room. For how skinny he looks, Matthew is frighteningly strong. Fucking wendigos.

* * *

_04 01_

When Gilbert peers behind his apartment's door, Ludwig is wearing a rubber gloves and a _gas mask._

He also has a gallon of disinfectant on the table and a spray bottle of it in his hand.

"You... you're overreacting," Gilbert says cautiously.

Ludwig's left eye twitches. He pulls off the mask. "I smell _everything."_ He slams the bottle down beside the gallon and stalks over. "Remember the rules? If you want to do anything, you do it at _his_ flat. This home is a no-sex zone."

"I didn't-" Ludwig marches into the kitchen before Gilbert can continue. "-actually do anything," he finishes as Ludwig howls agonisingly. Ludwig stomps back out.

"I will move out," he threatens. "One day. Watch me."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't sound sorry. You're grinning. Stop it, you- The mental image is revolting."

Gilbert snickers, and in that exact moment, Ivan climbs in through the window with a bag of rotting hearts wrapped with his coat.

Ludwig turns a few shades paler. This time, Gilbert can empathise, because it fucking _stinks,_ and Gilbert doesn't even have a hypersensitive nose that can distinguish subtle scents left behind from days ago.

"Hello," says Ivan. He drops the hearts onto the floor with a loud, squishy _plop._

Ludwig pukes all over the floor.

* * *

_04 19_

"I'm sorry," says Gilbert.

Ludwig groans, and continues to vomit into the toilet bowl.

* * *

_04 30_

"Is there anything else I can do to help?" says Ivan. He is holding Ludwig's gallon of disinfectant in one hand and a mop in another, except the gallon is more like that of _air_ and the surrounding room more like _evaporated disinfectant._

"Get the hearts to Arthur, come back and clean up, wash yourself with the anti-bacterial wash we have _thoroughly_ , and then pray hard that Ludwig doesn't maul you the next time he changes."

Ivan nods. He walks over to the window and lifts up the bleeding bundle of hearts from the floor. The blood drips all the way out the door.

"Do you think the neighbours will call the cops on us?" Gilbert wonders.

There is a long-suffering grunt from the toilet. Gilbert assumes that means no.

* * *

_05 00_

The day breaks with a gradual lightening at the baseline of the sky, before the rays start to pierce and the sun looms slowly in anticipation.

"Good morning," says Ivan, as he joins Gilbert at the edge of the roof.

"Morning," Gilbert greets, and presses their arms together. The chill of the night is starting to creep away. Gilbert knows that applies to the side of Ivan (and Ludwig, and Matthew, and everyone that surrounds his life nowadays, _when did that happen?)_ that goes bump in the night too. Someone once told him that the shine of daylight cast everyone into a shell of normalcy. Then again, the person has said, normalcy is subjective, and measurable only in human terms, so there's that.

Ivan reaches out and curves his arm to loop Gilbert's, before their palms meet and he twines their fingers together. It's almost sweet, if they do sweet more often and sweet reminds them both less of the smell of death. "You smell saltier than you ever did since I met you. Fleshier. Baser."

"In a good way?"

"In a good way," Ivan confirms. "You smell more alive."

Gilbert smiles. "Good."

Ivan hums in agreement. They watches the sky inch, until it is hanging high in the sky. Then Ivan presses a kiss to Gilbert's temple, soft and calm and not at all _hungry,_ so yes, there is still time after all. Gilbert turns and kisses Ivan back, this time on the lip, but equally as chaste and as soft. "Six months," murmurs Gilbert. "Six more months of borrowed time."

"Six more months," Ivan echoes. His grip on Gilbert tightens. His jaw twitches the way it always does when he is trying to hold in what he means to speak, and he clears his throat. "Let's make it count?"

Gilbert's laugh surprises neither of them. "Sure," he says. "To living long enough to see the new year."

Ivan kisses him again, this time deeper and wetter, and Gilbert lets Ivan draws him in, warm and dizzy until he can pretend that, just for a moment, he is not dying and Ivan is not dead and they are just normal beings living till the end of their time.

**Author's Note:**

> Gilbert is a human who died and is revived by Arthur in exchange for having his lifespan bound, and now misses his previous boring-but-normal human life. He lives on perpetual borrowed time until his body finally gives way to age. Ivan is his undead ghoul boyfriend. Alfred and Ludwig are werewolves after a series of unfortunate events, Matthew is a wendigo also after the same series of unfortunate events, and no one is normal.


End file.
